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May 14, 2020

Starter kit for Yoga students – what to recommend

Since the Coronavirus pandemic hit our shores life as we know it has changed. Even when we come out of lockdown, the way we practice yoga will undoubtedly be different to how it was before. And having your own yoga kit is going to be essential. Many yoga studios had already stipulated that post-lockdown all students will be required to bring their own kit to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.

At the moment, as many students practice yoga at home, they’ll also need to invest in some yoga kit to make the most of their online classes. As a yoga teacher myself, I know that the recent crisis has prompted many of my students to make the step to invest in their own yoga equipment so that they can join in fully with my online classes.

A senior yoga teacher once said to me, “If you were going to play tennis, you wouldn’t turn up without a racket, yoga should be the same.”

As yoga teachers it’s up to us to encourage our students to invest in proper kit so that their experience of doing yoga at home is as good as it can be, and also so that they have the tools to start a home yoga practice.

What is a yoga kit?

As an Iyengar yoga teacher, I have yoga props galore. However, if you’re on a budget, then a basic yoga kit list is:

A mat
Four blocks
Two bricks
One belt

These are the basic building blocks of a yoga practice. The mat gives you a surface that grips to your feet, preventing you from slipping in the poses. It also gives you a space in which to orientate the body.

The four blocks can be used to support the body for seated poses, can be used under the sacrum in supported Setubandha and under the shoulders in Sarvangasana.

The two bricks are like extensions of the arms in standing forward bends such as Uttanasana and Parsvottanasana, and can be used in all sorts of imaginative ways, like between the upper thighs to encourage the thighs to work.

The belt is again to allow those who are slightly stiffer to reach the feet in seated forward bends, to allow the hands to grip in Gomukhasana and can be used around the elbows in Pincha Mayurasana.

What products should I recommend?

There are so many fantastic yoga products out there. Yogamatters offers a wide range of well-designed, brightly coloured yoga props. They also do discounts for yoga teachers.

If you’d prefer to go for a more environmentally friendly yoga kit, then Manduka does a very high-quality range, including cork bricks and blocks, as well as recycled plastic blocks. Their Eko yoga mats are eco-friendly and biodegradable, harvested from non-Amazon rainforest rubber trees.

If these are too pricey, then encourage your students to look out for deals in their nearest cut-price supermarkets, such as Lidl and Aldi, and they occasionally sell yoga props in their ‘bargain’ aisle.

Yoga Extras

Once your students become committed yogis, you can encourage them to invest in more than the starter kit above. If restorative yoga is their thing then a bolster (or two) is essential. Bolsters’ rounded shape and supportive filling allow the body to open and relax while holding supine poses for long stretches of time.

A good-quality cotton blanket or two is also very useful for restorative yoga, as well as for use in general yoga classes as an extra level of height (with more give than the blocks), and for covering yourself for śavasana. Yogamatters do a large natural cotton blanket which is great for folding into various shapes for restorative poses – you need to wash it before use though as it’s very fluffy!

If you’re into hot yoga, then an absorbent yoga towel is a good investment to stop you slipping and sliding all over your mat. Manduka sells the yogitoes yoga towel, which is ultra-absorbent, lightweight, and quick-drying.

A yoga chair is also a worthwhile investment once your students become serious about their home practice. There are whole sequences you can do around the yoga chair, and it can be a way of accessing the more advanced poses, such as Kapotasana and Eka Pada Koundinyasana.

Yoga Clothes

Part of a good yoga kit is also having the right clothes. If you’re not comfortable and supported, it can be distracting from the yoga.

Sweaty Betty has a brilliantly well-made range of yoga leggings, which survive endless washing and last for years. They’re not natural fabrics, but they’re breathable and designed to be super comfortable. I have five pairs…and don’t regret a single one.

Their tops are also sweat-wicking and made from a lightweight fabric and are both flattering and well-fitting. They also do a great discount for yoga teachers, that applies even in the sales (hence the five pairs of leggings…).

If you’re into cotton yoga wear then yogamatters do organic cotton ‘pune’ pants which are the traditional Iyengar yoga choice of yoga bottoms.

Again, these are quite pricey options for your students, so feel free to recommend that they buy some basic cotton leggings online, just as long as they feel comfortable and can move easily. The most important thing is yoga after all!

PS – none of the above links are generating any money for us, they’re honest-to-goodness, real recommendations 😉

Posted By

Poppy Pickles

May 13, 2020

Holiday cancelled? Plan a Stay-at-home Mini Weekend Retreat

If you’re one of the multitudes of people who have booked holidays this summer, you’ll be wondering if you should just cancel it now, or wait and see. But the truth is, due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, it’s unlikely we’ll be jetting off to foreign climes for holidays in 2020.

The official line from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office is that the FCO advises British nationals against all but essential international travel. There is no end date to this advice. We just don’t know when we’ll be allowed to travel again. At the moment, the furthest we can travel is to a park to exercise.

So what about our travel plans? For most of us, instead of a holiday, all we have is the headache of trying to get our money back.

But we don’t have to leave the country, or even leave the house to create a sense of sanctuary and solace. What about creating our own little at-home, mini weekend retreat? Here are some ideas for how you can plan your very own mini-retreat so that you still have something to look forward to.

Get Planning!

Have a think about what it is that you’d most look forward to on a retreat holiday. Is it the fact that you don’t have to think about all the dull domestic stuff? Is it the break from technology? Is it being pampered with treatments? Is it looking after body and soul with yoga and meditation? Or is it just lounging around with a book in the sun? Or perhaps a combination of ALL of the above.

You can also set an intention for the retreat; to reduce anxiety, to detox body and mind, to give yourself some compassion. Once you’ve decided on your aim, write it down so that you can remind yourself why you’re taking this time for yourself.

Get Organised

Once you’ve decided on the focus of your retreat you’ll need to do a bit of preparation. Spend the week before doing a bit of a spring clean – change the sheets, empty all the bins, and do a bit of a tidy. If you can get the house back to square one then you won’t be distracted by housework while on your ‘retreat’.

It’s also worth making sure you’ve got a little bit ahead with work if you can, so you’re not tempted to ‘just do a little bit’ over the weekend. Now that we’re working from home, the lines between work and home are blurred and it’s harder to switch off. To help with this, try to literally switch off – phones, PCs, iPads, etc. Put them in a drawer for a day and let the outside world recede.

Plan your Menu

Make the most of your mini-retreat by planning your meals in advance. Most retreats offer nourishing, fresh food that’s good for body and mind, such as those in line with the seasons, or an Ayurvedic diet.

You could do overnight-soaked oats for breakfast with a fresh fruit coulis, a ‘buddha bowl’ style lunch with quinoa, avocado, sprouting seeds, and anything else you fancy, and then after all that healthy food, you could buy some nice-quality ready meal, or splash out on a takeaway for dinner.

Time on your own

This might be a laughable idea if you’re the parent of young children in lockdown. You can only dream of going to the loo on your own, let alone a whole weekend of quiet solo time. But being a parent is a full-time job with no let up that can leave you feeling exhausted and on a short fuse. Could you carve out a couple of hours? Your partner could take the kids to the park, or keep them entertained elsewhere in the house while you have a long, leisurely bath, or watch a movie under a duvet, or do an online yoga class. Whatever means mini-break to you!

Immersion in nature

Now that we’re allowed out for exercise more than once a day, as well as travel to get some exercise, you could venture further afield than the nearest park and maybe even take a picnic and a thermos of tea. Take in the frothy May blossom, the fresh green of Spring, and allow Mother Nature to soothe your soul.

Do some yoga

There are more and more opportunities to do classes with some amazing teachers. Quite a few are offering weekend workshops, with two classes over one weekend. Why not tie this is to a whole weekend retreat? You could structure your day around the workshops, and in the evening go for a quiet walk to look at the sunset, or practice pranayama or meditation outside in the garden. We’re also offering an online Yoga Foundations course at the end of the month – like a mini retreat over the weekend, and it even counts toward your 200-hr yoga teacher training, should you wish to continue your journey further!

Try out Meditation

If this isn’t something you’re used to doing, then why not use your weekend retreat as a way to try it for yourself, especially if the current situation has you feeling anxious about the future. There are lots of ways to get into meditation using apps (see our article on Wellbeing during Coronavirus), but there’s also a free Monday meditation series with Ali Mortimer, founder of the ‘Heal yourself Happy’ method, sponsored by Marks & Spencers.

Get Creative

If you’re the kind of person that loves doing arty stuff, but it feels like you just don’t have the time at the moment, why not spend a weekend on a creative project that will give you joy. Rather than DIY, which most of us seem to be doing more of at the moment, try something that is for the sake of being creative, rather than just getting a job done. For example, you could set up a still life and try to depict it using lots of different mediums; pencil, ink, chalks, watercolour, even acrylics if you have them.

Pamper Yourself

Okay, it’s not as exciting as a Spa day, but there are plenty of ways you can pamper yourself at home. Do a head-to-toe of treatments, starting with a pedicure, getting rid of all that gnarly skin on your feet, which you’ve been ignoring, because, you know, lockdown. Exfoliate, slather yourself in healthy oils which help to rejuvenate the skin, such as coconut oil, almond oil, or extra virgin olive oil, and you could even try an Ayurvedic self-massage (called Abhyanga) for the full relaxing effect.

Posted By

Poppy Pickles

May 13, 2020

Working from home? Yoga poses to relieve your body

Are we still in lockdown? Aren’t we? Most of us are still none the wiser after Sunday’s latest announcement from the government. The fact of the matter is that the Coronavirus is still a threat, and as such, life won’t be going back to BC-normal for a while yet.

For those of us that are lucky enough to be able to work from home, this means more days that blur into each other, as we sit hunched at the kitchen table trying to get our work done, as well as put a wash on, and keep the house looking less like a bombsite.

But staring at a screen can bring all sorts of problems.

What does looking at a screen all day do to our bodies?

Lolly Stirk, the pregnancy yoga guru said that she noticed that women coming to her classes these days often look green and dull from staring at screens all day. Her explanation for this is that when we’re focused on a screen our posture is such that we don’t breathe properly. After her classes, she said the women changed colour and were pink and glowing after actually taking some proper breaths!

As well as barely breathing, our posture is usually pretty terrible:

We sit cross-legged, reducing venal flow and cutting off the circulation to the legs.
Our lower back is often dropped, pulling on the muscles of the spine and causing compression of the nerves in the lower back.
The weight of the head and arms dropping forwards causes the upper back to bulge outwards, creating a ‘hump’ effect.
The shoulders are also pulled forwards, causing the chest to become convex and drop.
The head is pulled forwards, again pulling on the upper spine, and pulling the cervical spine out of alignment, which can cause neck problems.

So what can we do about it?

As with most things, the first step is awareness. Once we become aware of how we’re sitting, it’s easier to do something about it. Sit at your computer and scan through your body – get someone to take a picture of you if you’re not sure! Once we see how we’re sitting we can use our common sense to do something about it.

But here are a few tips to start with:

Uncross your legs, and sit on a chair that’s the right height so that your feet can be flat on the floor with your shins vertical.
Lift your screen up on some big books (or you can buy a laptop stand) so that you can keep your head lifted while looking at the screen. Or just scroll up more often so that what you’re writing is closer to the top of the screen.
Draw your shoulders back and down at regular intervals and try to keep them there while you work.

Do some chair yoga

If you haven’t got time to stop what you’re doing but are starting to feel a bit hunched over, then quickly do some chair yoga for your shoulders:

Urdhva Hastasana/upward-facing arms – stretch your arms up to the ceiling, with palms facing each other. I love this simple pose because it does so much. It lifts the heart, lifts the spine, stretches the shoulders.
Gomukhasana arms/cow face pose arms – stretch one arm up to the ceiling then fold it down behind your back so that the palm is against the centre of your shoulder blades. Stretch the other arm out and slight the back of the hand up the back – clasp the hands together if you can. If you can’t catch, then get hold of your clothes and pull the top elbow up and the bottom elbow down. Change arms.
Garudasana arms/eagle arms – bring your arms in front of you with your arms at right angles and your elbows level with your shoulders. Cross one elbow over the other and bring the backs of the hands towards each other until you can catch the thumb of the hand on top with the little finger edge of the hand underneath. Breathe into the stretch across the shoulder-blades. Change the cross of the elbows.
Paschima Baddha Hastasana/Bound arms behind your back – this is a simple pose that helps to draw the outer shoulders back and down. Hold one elbow behind your back and draw the arm down, then reach across and hold the other elbow. Change sides.

Get up and stretch!

We all take tea breaks and loo breaks don’t we? So what about 5-minute yoga breaks? This should be mandatory in my mind.

When we sit for long periods our legs and back seize up. So try these yoga poses which help to stretch and tone the legs:

Ardha Uttanasana/Half Forward Fold Pose – with your hands at the wall or on a surface at hip height step back till your trunk and arms are level with your hips, and your legs are vertical. Take the feet hip-width apart and stretch back from the hands to the outer hips, and lift the legs. This stretches out the back and the hamstrings.
Vrksasana/Tree pose – As well as strengthening the ankles, this pose works on hip and groin flexibility and balance, which is great to focus the mind too.
Vajrasana/Kneeling pose – while it might feel counterintuitive to sit on your heels after lots of sitting, kneeling is actually a great way to restore energy to the legs, as it compresses the legs for the blood to then efficiently return.
Sankatasana/Difficult pose (!) – To stretch out the back of the calves and Achilles kneel up on the balls of your feet. Hold onto a chair and then roll backwards and forwards from the back of the ball of the foot to the toes.
Adho Mukha Svanasana/Downward Dog – Downward dog is a stretch of the whole back of the body, including the shoulders, as well as an inversion.

Happy body, happy mind

Remember that our bodies and minds are intrinsically linked. If we don’t look after our bodies and let them tense up into one big knot, our brains will also be fogged and tense. Getting up from your place of work to do some yoga (even an online yoga class) isn’t skiving off work, but making sure that you’re working to your optimum level.

Posted By

Poppy Pickles

May 6, 2020

A Yoga Teacher Marketing Toolkit: How to Promote Yourself

Being a yoga teacher is a great job. You’re doing something you love, and teaching other people to love yoga as much as you do. But there’s a lot more to being a yoga teacher than just teaching yoga.

Students don’t just turn up by magic – sadly. In order to get students through your door, and then keep them coming, you need to do some marketing. Which for some yoga teachers is a thing they love to hate.

If you have a background in marketing then congratulations, you’ve got a big advantage! But most of us don’t, and have to learn from scratch how to keep our classes full. So here’s a basic ‘how-to’ of yoga marketing, just to get you started. And who knows, you might even start to enjoy it!

Your Yoga website

Some teachers maintain that they don’t need a website, and use Facebook and other social media to get their details out there. Others think that having a website means that there’s a more structured way that potential students can search for you and find out information. It’s up to you, but as a way of controlling and updating your ‘brand’ image, as well as coming up in Google searches, having a website is very helpful.

It’s worth bearing in mind that having a website is an extra cost, as you have to pay an annual fee for the domain name, the site, and fees for other ‘add ons’ (for example, you opt for an email address to go with your website).

Squarespace and WordPress are popular website platforms, but there are loads of well-designed platforms out there that make it easy to build and maintain your website. Wix and Mailchimp are also currently offering a free website-building service – although it’s worth noting Mailchimp’s offering is pretty basic at this stage as it’s not their core product (see Mailchimp Emails, below!).

The key is to keep it simple. Look at other yoga teacher’s websites that you admire, and take notes. Keep your home page uncluttered, clear – and don’t forget to keep it updated.

A Yoga Blog

A regular blog is a great way to keep your students engaged, and it should also mean that your website goes higher up the Google search list. The key is to keep it regular though, so once you’ve decided to write one, think about how often is realistic. For example, publishing a monthly blog can fit into most people’s schedules. It also means you’re not filling up the inboxes of your email list.

Mailchimp Emails

And talking of email lists, Mailchimp is a pretty essential marketing tool. It’s also free up to a certain amount of people. Find a way of collecting every student’s email address. For example, you could use a medical form that you give to every student who attends your classes. As part of the form you can ask for their email address, just make sure to add a clear paragraph about them agreeing to be sent information, in line with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that came in in 2018.

You could also add a landing page to your website, perhaps offering something for free in exchange for an email address. That way you can grow your mailing list from online sources.

Use your Mailchimp email list to notify students and prospective students about upcoming workshops, or send out your blog to your students before posting it on your website. Regular contact using high-quality content will keep you in mind and mean that they’re more likely to get in touch.

Taking Online Bookings

The current crisis has highlighted our reliance on the internet, and this is set to increase, especially as cash is being avoided at the moment. As up-to-date yoga teachers, it’s worth working out how to take online bookings for your classes.

In order to set up online bookings for regular lessons, you can use scheduling apps that link to your website. Many yoga studios use Mindbody as an external booking system for the classes. Or, using Paypal or Stripe, for example, you can set up a ‘products’ page on your website, so that people can pay for each class separately.

Posting on Social Media

The main social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Each one is used in slightly different ways and attract different users.

Starting your own Facebook page is a useful way of reaching out to local people, Instagram is about the yoga community, and Twitter is more about interesting info on the subject.

Once you get into posting on social media this is when the small job of marketing can consume your every waking hour. It’s helpful to pick a platform that you feel the most comfortable on – being aware of your target market too. For example, if you’re going for slightly older students, then Facebook is probably the platform.

Once you’ve decided which one to focus on you can start to get organised, using a scheduling tool such as buffer. Due to the algorithms that these platforms are run on, you have to keep up a regular stream of posts in order to come high up in people’s news feeds.

However, there’s a balance. Some experts would have you posting twenty times a day, but personally I feel this would make me come across like some demented egomaniac. Be consistent, engage with your audience, and make sure you believe in the content that you’re putting up; quality is important.

Leaflets, Flyers, and Posters

This may not be relevant just yet, but once we’re out of lockdown, people will be out and about again and possibly desperate to get back to in-person yoga (when it’s safe to do so, and when you’re ready). This is when good old-fashioned flyers can do the trick, especially if you’re hoping to get new students in your local area.

Keep your posters, simple, colourful and with only the KEY information – don’t write an essay, no one will read it and it will distract from your eye-catching image.

To design your poster you can use apps such as Canva and Adobe Indesign in order to give your finished piece a professional look. Canva in particular is a great tool for non-designers, as it’s extremely easy to use and comes with lots of (free) templates.

Images

Before you do any of the above you’ll need to have some good images. You can, of course, buy high-resolution images (please don’t use low-res pixelated images on your marketing material) from websites such as Shutterstock (as well as some good free ones on Pexels), but having some great pictures of you in action will be worth the money.

Check out images of other yoga teachers that you like and ask them who took their photos. It’s helpful to find a photographer that specialises in yoga photography as they’ll be able to guide you on the shoot.

Have a wide range of photos taken in different outfits and with different backgrounds. If possible, having a few with a plain white background is very useful for flyers and as background pictures.

Word of Mouth

Marketing is important. But it’s also about putting the time in. Once you’ve been teaching regular classes for a few years you will find that you’ve developed a yoga community of your own. You will have regular students who tell their friends about you, and suddenly you’ll find that you haven’t had to do a hard marketing push for a while.

However, this doesn’t mean it’s time to rest on your laurels. There are always reasons why people stop coming to yoga, and you’ll always need new students coming through your doors.

Posted By

Poppy Pickles

May 5, 2020

Getting Ready for Yoga Teaching After Lockdown

The global pandemic has changed all our lives – there will be BC (Before Coronavirus) and AC (After Coronavirus) – and it may well be that the way we teach yoga will be altered for a while to come. Rather than being depressed or concerned, we can be prepared for this new way of working. And just as teaching online has given us a whole new skill set, as well as some surprising advantages, there may well be some pros to easing back to in-person teaching.

As our European counterparts start to come out of lockdown and pictures of Italian squares being filled with people emerge, we are currently awaiting announcements from the government as to how and when social distancing restrictions will be lifted. Normal life will resume, but not quite as we know it.

To help you prepare for getting back to in-person teaching, we’ve put together some best-practice guidelines, aka handy hints and tips, ahead of studios re-opening.

Safety First

When it comes to a pandemic, the motto is safety first. Our yoga students, employers, employees, and the people we hire our spaces from – we want to make sure that getting back to teaching is with the health and safety of our whole yoga community in mind.

This means that, just because the government says that we can get back to work, it doesn’t mean that we should. It’s worth thinking about the risks before you agree to go back to teaching in person.

Does the place where you teach adhere to any new government-issued health and safety requirements?
Will you be able to ensure that the yoga studio is kept properly clean?
Will your students’ health be put at risk due to the space in which you teach?
Will your own health be at risk?

If the answer to any of these is ‘yes’, then you might want to think carefully before committing to in-person classes again.

Plan your Return

Before planning in-person classes again, you should be clear on what the government guidelines are. We’d also recommend checking with your insurance providers, to make sure you’re covered for teaching in-person classes before you make any plans.

We’ve now spent six weeks adapting to lockdown life and, within a few weeks, we could be getting back to teaching in person. Instead of finding that you’re caught between the two, have a plan of action.

This plan could include checking with your students whether they’d be happy to return to classes yet. Also, check with the studios or venues that you teach to see what their plans for re-opening are. If you have your own yoga studio then make sure you’re completely aware of the health and safety guidelines published by the government or by the World Health Organisation.

A Phased Return

This could be the approach that many yoga businesses take. Instead of rushing from all-online to all-in-person, a gradual return to physical classes could be a safer and more considered way of doing it. By bringing back half your classes and keeping the rest as live-streaming or online classes, then you can reduce the number of students per class, which will help keep social distancing measures in place.

Practical Safety Measures

Social Distancing – In all likelihood, social distancing measures will be in place for a while to come – some scientists have been saying till 2022! So it will be worth thinking about keeping student numbers down to a level where 2 metres between students can be maintained. For smaller venues, this will be very challenging and could mean that it’s not financially viable to go back to teaching in-person yet. To help keep control of numbers, it could be worth taking advance bookings only and avoiding drop-ins for now.

Props – At the moment it would be a good idea to restrict the use of communal mats or props. As an Iyengar yoga teacher, I usually lug a huge bag of bricks and blocks to each class. Post Covid-19 I will no longer be doing this (internal cheer) as I will be asking all my students to bring their own. That way, the risk of cross-contamination is greatly reduced.

Class Plan – if your classes involve a lot of student movement, it may well be worth reducing this for the time being – keeping students to their mats to avoid students going near each other’s equipment or getting too close by mistake. Think about poses that need a lot of physical adjustments; you might want to avoid those for now or think of other ways to do them.

Payment – by keeping your bookings to advance bookings only you’ll reduce the need for cash payments, which aren’t a good idea at the moment. If you haven’t set up online payments yet then you could try using PayPal or stripe on your website. If this is too technical for you, you could get a website designer to add them for you for a small fee.

Records – it’s always been important to keep clear records and registers, but even more so now. Make sure your registers are kept up to date, so that if a case of COVID-19 is reported you can immediately notify anyone else who was in the same class. But don’t forget privacy laws – don’t name the person without their permission.

Cleanliness – this is doubly important now. Ask your students to regularly clean their yoga equipment. Ask them to wash their hands before coming into the class. Make sure you wash your hands (for the regulation ‘Happy Birthday’ x2 length of time) before and after each class.

Face Masks – the UK still seems to be in two minds about whether face masks are a good idea or not, but other European countries are making them compulsory in public spaces. If government guidelines recommend them, you’ll need to decide whether you want to teach a class wearing a mask. It might be that you ask students to wear masks to the class and outside while waiting, and then take them off once inside. You will need to be clear on what the guidelines are for this. (Our marketing team here is thinking of creating colourful designs for our teachers… Face masks, the new fashion accessory?! Let us know on instagram if you’d wear one of ours!).

If YOU Get Ill – have a back-up plan in case you’re taken ill. You can’t take any chances, even if you think it’s just a cold – and remember, it’s also YOUR health that you’re protecting. If you’re self-employed, your health is your business and you can’t teach if you’re ill.

Reviewing your Classes

Once you’ve made the decision to teach in-person classes again, it will be worth reviewing how things are going a few weeks in. If student numbers are very low, and the restrictions are affecting your ability to teach yoga properly, it might be better to go back to online teaching. As we said earlier, just because you can go back to teaching in-person doesn’t mean you have to.

On the other hand, it might be a lifeline for those students who haven’t been able to use online technology to keep their yoga going. For those people that live on their own, the social aspect of yoga classes is what keeps them coming week after week, and if you’re able to provide even small classes then it might be worth the financial hit.

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